PT and medical students serve at health clinics in Dominican Republic with Project Hispaniola
Students and faculty in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program traveled to sugar cane plantations in Dominican Republic this summer to provide services to hundreds of people as part of the Project Hispaniola program.
Five students and two faculty from the Department of Physical Therapy made the trip in early June. It was the department’s seventh year participating in the program organized by the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at UT Health San Antonio. They joined four students and two faculty from the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine who had arrived a week earlier to staff medical clinics to provide community members with basic health care services.
Most of the people treated in the clinics are Haitian migrants who live and work in bateyes, communities located on or near sugarcane plantations. About 400 people received PT services during this year’s trip, said Associate Professor Michael Geelhoed, PT, DPT, OCS, MTC. Shoulder and lower back pain were among the most common conditions treated by the PT students, who visited five bateyes over the course of the week.
“The amazing part of this experience from my perspective is to watch the students grow in confidence through the week, see the smiles of the people we serve who have never experienced PT before and are amazed at the results, and the bond as a group through serving others,” Geelhoed said.
Third-year DPT student Priscilla Lizbeth Martinez appreciated the ability to bring some relief to the people who attended the clinic, including plantation workers in their 80s.
“Some of the
se people that came were in a lot of pain and just from us working on them for a little bit, they were able to move a lot more and were more pain free,” she said. “They left with a smile on their face because they were able to move in ways that they hadn’t been able to do in a long time.”
The experience has motivated Martinez to find a way to give back as she prepares to practice.
“It inspired me. I want to go back and do global health work like that,” she said. “I at least want to be able to provide a pro bono service in my community somehow.”
This year’s trip was the second for third-year medical student Kate Frank, who said she appreciates the interprofessional aspect of the program and the opportunity to help people achieve better health.
“When you give them a goodie bag of stuff, a toothbrush and toothpaste and soap, I feel like oftentimes it’s something we take for granted here,” Frank said. “Our goal is not to just give them meds and short terms treatments. We want their health to be better in the long term.”
This year, students attended global health educational sessions led by CMHE Director Matthew Dasco, MD, MSc, to prepare for the experience, which made the clinical experience smoother, Geelhoed said.